Page 41 of The Love Clause

The possessiveness should offend me. Should trigger all my independent woman alarms. Instead, it feels like victory—like finally breaking through that perfect facade to the real man beneath.

Still, I can't let the qualifier pass unchallenged. "While we're here?" I echo, pulling back slightly to meet his gaze. "And after that?"

A flicker of something—uncertainty, maybe even vulnerability—crosses his face before he can mask it. "After that…we go back to reality."

"And what if I don't want to?"

The question hangs between us, simple but loaded with implications neither of us is fully ready to confront. His grip on me loosens slightly, though he doesn't step away.

"Josie..." My name is half warning, half plea.

"Don't 'Josie' me," I say, suddenly tired of the dance. "Either you want this—want me—or you don't. But stop pretending it's just about the contract or the arrangement or whatever excuse you're telling yourself."

Before he can respond, a voice calls from somewhere down the hallway—Harrison, asking if anyone has seen us. The contract signing must be approaching.

Elliot sets me down gently, his hands lingering at my waist a moment longer than necessary. "We should go. The signing."

And just like that, the bubble bursts. Reality intrudes, and I watch in real time as he rebuilds his walls, straightening his tie, smoothing his hair, transforming back into the perfectly composed lawyer.

But his eyes, when they meet mine, still burn with something far from professional. And as he reaches for the door, he pauses, his voice low and rough.

"This isn't over, Josie."

It sounds like a promise. It sounds like a threat. It sounds like exactly what I need to hear.

SIXTEEN

Elliot

I should be celebrating.The Harrison contract is signed, the deal secured, my path to partnership essentially guaranteed. Everything I've worked toward for the past five years, achieved with a signature and a handshake. Yet as I drive us back to the city, the leather portfolio containing the precious documents sits forgotten on the backseat, and all I can focus on is the woman beside me. Josie stares out the passenger window, uncharacteristically silent, the memory of our closet confrontation hanging between us like storm clouds. I should feel satisfied. Instead, I feel like a man balanced on a razor's edge, one wrong move away from falling.

Her profile is outlined against the passing landscape—the stubborn tilt of her chin, the curve of her lips that I now know the taste of, the wild curls she's attempted to tame into a ponytail. Barney sleeps in his carrier on the backseat, leaving us without even his occasional whines to break the weighted silence.

"The money will be transferred to your account by tomorrow morning," I say finally, desperate to establish some normalcy, some boundary.

Her head turns, eyes narrowing slightly. "That's what you want to talk about right now? The payment?"

"I assumed you'd want confirmation of when to expect it."

"Right." She turns back to the window. "Because this is all about the money. Just a transaction."

"That was our agreement," I remind her, though the words taste hollow.

"Our agreement didn't include what happened in that closet. Or in your bed." Her voice is calm but carries an undercurrent of steel I've come to recognize. "But then, we seem to be making a habit of breaking that agreement, don't we?"

I maintain my focus on the road, knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. "Extenuating circumstances."

"Extenuating circumstances," she repeats, a bitter laugh escaping her. "Is that what you call it when you pin me against a wall and tell me I'm yours? An extenuating circumstance?"

The memory of it—her body pressed between mine and the shelves, her legs wrapped around my waist, the taste of her gasp—sends a rush of heat through me that I refuse to acknowledge.

"I was…overly possessive. It won't happen again."

"And if I want it to happen again?"

Her direct question leaves me momentarily speechless. This is Josie—unfiltered, uncompromising, refusing to let me hide behind careful phrasing and professional distance.

"Do you?" I ask, the question emerging rougher than intended.

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